


carpe noctem

by socialist steve rogers (metaphoriclee)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Clint Barton-centric, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, POV Clint Barton, Peter Parker Has Nightmares, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker knows ASL, Peter Parker-centric, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, no beta we die like tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28071252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metaphoriclee/pseuds/socialist%20steve%20rogers
Summary: Clint and Peter hang out together in the small hours of the morning. That's it. That's the fic.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Peter Parker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 81





	carpe noctem

* * *

Clint couldn’t sleep.

Of course, this was nothing new – Clint doubted that anyone in the tower ever slept through the night, although it was never outright acknowledged even when the cries of nightmares could be heard through the walls.

The conclusion was shortly reached that finding and consuming some form of midnight snack would be the best course of action – if not to help him sleep, then to assuage his restlessness.

He sat up and pulled himself out of bed, and padded over to his bedroom door before stopping, turning back and snatching his hearing aids off the nightstand, just in case.

The halls of the tower were illuminated by dim red lights dotted along the bottom of the walls. Bruce had said they were good for one’s eyes somehow, but they just made the halls look like airplane landing strips. 

When he reached the end of the hall, the sliding door was already ajar, a warm light casting a sliver of yellow on the marble flooring. Again, nothing new; Clint wondered who was up. 

He’d often find Steve sitting at the bar, sketching in a notebook at odd hours, and he’d always acknowledge Clint with a smile or nod of the head before going back to his art. Nat could sometimes be found sitting on the couch, reading a book - usually in Russian - but she’d put it down when Clint entered, and usually offer to play cards or watch a movie together. In the rare instances Tony was the one up (and he wasn’t in his lab or somewhere else), neither would acknowledge the other, and Clint would grab something from the fridge and retreat out of the common area.

Tonight, it was none of those, and as Clint stepped into the room, scanning the area for another person, he found the only sign of life to be a head of messy brunette hair peeking over the top of the couch. 

“Hey Mr Barton,” came the boy’s voice from the other side of the room, accompanied by a waving hand. Clint supposed he should have expected the boy to be up - Clint didn’t sleep very much as a teen himself, and the kid had much more on his plate than he ever did at that age.

“Hey Pete,” Clint replied, treading over to the pantry. “How’d you know it was me?”

“You’re the only one who wears socks around the tower. It sounds different on the floor.”

“Fair enough. Snackbar?” Clint asked, already anticipating the answer and grabbing a second one from the box in the pantry. 

The reply came as expected - “Sure.” - and Clint tossed the bar over toward the couch. A hand shot out, snatching it from the air at the last second, and he couldn’t help but be impressed. 

He followed the snack over to the living area and dropped onto one of the designer armchairs around the coffee table. Peter barely acknowledged him, glancing over, and Clint could see he was curled up in a fluffy blanket, head resting on his knees. His expression was blank, a far cry from his usual cheery demeanour, and it was plain to see something was wrong.

“No homework?” Clint tried to lighten the mood. Peter just shook his head. 

“Nightmares or something?” He probed. It was entirely possible the teen didn’t have anyone to talk to, and while Clint wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice of confidant, he might as well offer. 

“Something like that.” Peter tore off the edge of the snackbar’s wrapper, and broke off a corner. 

Clint only had a vague idea about the things Peter had been up to in the months since first meeting him in Berlin, but he’d heard about the Vulture and some of what had transpired. After Nat had found out (however she’d done that), her yelling match with Tony could be heard by everyone in the tower. He’d caught something about a collapsed building and a crashing plane, and that would have left a mark (psychologically, he knew Peter had some sort of super-healing that would have taken care of any physical injuries). 

“Got it.” If the kid didn’t want to talk about it, he wouldn’t push it. “Wanna play cards?” He asked, waving at the deck on the coffee table with his snackbar.

“What game?” Clint could hear the spark of interest in Peter’s voice, and then realised he’d brought up a good point. He and Nat usually played poker or something similar, but he got the feeling that wouldn’t be a game Peter knew how to play.

“Snap?” he wondered out loud. “I don’t know if snap works with two though… We could just build card castles or something like that?” He trailed off, before adding, “If you’re game, that is.”

“Yeah, okay.” Clint could have pumped the air (if he didn’t think it would weird Peter out).

Sliding from the armchair onto the carpet, Clint picked the pack of cards from the table, and sliding them from their cardboard box, deftly divided them in half and deposited each stack in front of himself and Peter, who’d followed Clint onto the carpet with his blanket.

For all Clint’s years of specialised archery training and thousands of hours practicing keeping steady hands, card castles were impossible - he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking at just the wrong moments. 

He’d barely reached the second storey after about 10 minutes, having knocked the first over numerous times, but Peter - who he’d only kept one eye on while building - had already completed four storeys and was working on a fifth. 

He was starting to smile a bit too, when he placed cards successfully, and Clint couldn’t help but feel triumphant about it. 

“You tired?” Clint asked. He was starting to feel the fatigue creep up on him, but if Peter wasn’t ready to sleep, he’d keep him company until he was. 

The teen shook his head, somehow still managing to place a pair of cards at the same time. 

“Do you want to go to bed?” he queried, placing another set of cards. “I don’t mind if you want to get back to sleep!” 

Clint could sense the disappointment in his voice, as much as Peter tried to hide it. 

“Nah, I'm staying up if you are. Sure you don't wanna talk about what's keeping you awake?"

Peter opened his mouth to reply, then paused.

"Did you see on the news a while ago, the ferry that got cut in half and nearly sunk then Iron Man came and saved it?" Clint had, vaguely, and nodded. "Well that was kind of my fault except not really because I was trying to stop the bad guys but Mr Stark got mega pissed and took away the suit. And so I was like dreaming of it over again and trying to hold the boat together but I was failing and it felt like I was being pulled apart, and this time Mr Stark wasn't there so the webs snapped and I fell and got pulled under and then I was drowning all over again like when I was trapped in the parachute and I woke up feeling like I was falling through the water."

"Sorry for rambling," he added as an afterthought. By now, both of their card castles were forgotten.

"It's all good. Do you know any ASL? I was having a bit of trouble keeping up lip reading, cos these things-" he gestured to his hearing aids, "don't help a ton."

Peter's eyes widened. 

"Yeah, I do, I completely forgot you were-" he stopped, realising his mistake, then repeated in sign. The boy's ASL was decent, if not a little uncertain and a tad rusty, but Clint couldn't complain, it was better than the majority of the population.

"How'd you learn?" Clint asked, signing as he spoke back, nodding to Peter's hands.

_ Ned's younger brother is deaf - Ned's my best friend - and he taught me some, I just kept learning cos it's a good skill to have, you know? _

_ Yeah, true. Anyway though, kid, have you talked to anyone about the dreams?  _

_ Not really _ , Peter replied.  _ Mr Stark said everyone gets them and just to learn to live with it. _

_ Ah _ . Clint grimaced at Peter's reply.  _ Tony - Mr Stark - can be a bit of an ass about that sort of thing, I can talk to him, see if he can get you a therapist to talk to about them if you want? _

_ I don't want anyone else to find out about Spider-man _ , Peter quickly signed back, spelling out Spider -Man with letters. 

_ If you don't want to talk to a therapist it's all good, nobody will force you to. You can always talk to any of us if you need, we can probably give you some tips on how to deal with nightmares - Steve used to get them pretty bad, 'bout Bucky and the plane crash, he might be best to talk to. All of us have some demons though, you're not alone.  _ He spelled out Steve, Bucky and some of the other words he thought Peter might not know, and the teen seemed to follow along.

_ What if it's at night?  _

_ Then you come knock on my door. Or Nat's. Or Steve's or Sam's or anyone else's, okay? _

Peter nodded, not bothering to sign out a yes. 

"Ready for sleep now?" Clint asked again, speaking instead of signing.

_ If I sleep out here tonight will you sleep out here too?  _ Peter signed back.

"Yeah, of course."

  
  


Nat couldn't help but snap a picture the next morning when she found the pair underneath a blanket on the couch, Clint's arm around Peter's shoulder and both surrounded by an array of playing cards and a (somehow still standing) card castle.

**Author's Note:**

> Unfortunately inspired by my own experiences building card castles in the wee hours.
> 
> Toss a kudos or comment my way if you enjoyed, I'm in need of the internet validation.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr @croww-lee


End file.
